Back in 2011, Nintendo celebrated The Legend of Zelda franchise's 25th anniversary by releasing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii. The game relied solely on the Wii's motion controls, which were always unreliable to say the least. Did this game get motion controls right, or did it suffer as a result? I'll give you my take by making this review.

Graphics: 9/10 Skyward Sword is definitely one of the better looking games on the Wii. Unlike Twilight Princess which had a more realistic look to it than other games in the series, Skyward Sword had a less realistic look to it. Certainly not to the extent of Wind Waker of course, but somewhere in between that and TP. The game also appears to have a cel-shaded look somewhat similar to that found in Breath of the Wild. The many environments as well as the characters themselves are designed to best of the Wii's capabilities. It's not the most visually stunning game on the system, but the graphics are more than worthy of a 9 at least.

Sound: 10/10 Legend Of Zelda games are for the most part well-known for having fantastic soundtracks, and Skyward Sword is no exception. In fact, I'd say that this game has one of if not the best soundtrack in the entire series! It has amazing boss themes such as the Koloktos theme, as well as one of the most epic final boss themes I've ever heard! Aside from Xenoblade Chronicles and Super Smash Bros Brawl, there aren't many Wii soundtracks that can compete with the music found in Skyward Sword. This soundtrack is more than deserving of a 10.

Addictiveness: 1/10 Skyward Sword may have great visuals and music, but it has what I would consider to be the worst controls in the entire series (not including the CDI games). Unlike it's predecessor Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword is only playable using motion controls. The problem with motion controls is they're extremely unreliable. They make even the most basic of actions feel like a chore sometimes. For example, holding the wii remote up is supposed to allow you to charge up a skyward strike. Sometimes it'll work right, and then other times Link's arm will go down before the charging process is complete. Another example is boss keys, which in this game are basically puzzle pieces. You have to spin around the puzzle piece at the door until you find match them together. Pretty much every time, I'd eventually have an issue where the piece wouldn't move the way I was moving my wii remote. There's also a beetle item in the game that requires you to steer it using... you guessed it, MOTION CONTROLS! Nothing works the way it's supposed to a lot of times, resulting in an extremely dissatisfying experience. A game can have great visuals, music and a memorable storyline, but if the controls don't work right, especially in a game like this, it ruins the entire experience.

Along with the control issues, the stamina gauge was introduced in Skyward Sword. Unlike it's successor Breath of the Wild, the stamina gauge didn't feel like it belonged at all. All it really did in Skyward Sword was make an already tedious game more tedious. Any action you make lowers the stamina gauge, and the game punishes you if you let the stamina gauge deplete all the way. The only ways to refill the gauge are to reach green fruits on the ground or to stop your action completely. The only purpose the stamina gauge had here was to hinder your progress.

The controls are terrible and the stamina gauge sucks, but at least this game has some memorable boss battles, such as Koloktos. Most of the boss fights are fun, but there are a couple of bosses you have to battle multiple times in the game, which gets pretty repetitive. I've played games with repetitive boss fights before and still enjoyed them, but when there's issues with the controls along with repetitive boss fights, the game's no longer enjoyable. I've played a ton of Zelda games over the years, this is the first time aside from Zelda II that I've had an issue with the controls in this series. (Never played the CDI games though. It ruins the experience for me, which is why I'm giving the addictiveness a 1.

Story: 10/10 Skyward Sword may have had serious gameplay issues, but to it's credit, it had one of the more memorable storylines and cast of characters in the entire series. Without going into major spoiler territory, the game starts off on an floating island in the sky called Skyloft. There, Skyward Sword's incarnation of Link is trying to become a knight by completing the Wing Ceremony. A couple of bullies led by Groose try to get in Link's way, but ultimately Link prevails, and gets some alone time with Zelda. Later, Link and Zelda are on their Loftwings flying through the sky when suddenly a tornado comes out of nowhere and knocks Zelda off her Loftwing, causing her to fall to the land below. From there, Link must travel to the land below the clouds to rescue Zelda. The plot only gets better from there, and you encounter some of the most memorable characters the series has had to offer including Groose and Ghirahim. Overall, the storyline for Skyward Sword is easily one of the best seen in the series. I'm giving the story a 10.

Depth: 7/10 Skyward Sword is a fairly long game, which can take anywhere between 40-60 hours to complete. While there is plenty to do in this game, it's length is a bit inflated due to the poorly implemented stamina gauge, lengthy tutorial, and sloppy motion controls. There's plenty of sidequests, dungeons, and boss fights to complete (even though some bosses are super repetitive). There's a solid amount of content in this game, enough for me to give the depth a 7.

Difficulty: 4/10 Most of Skyward Sword's difficulty comes from the awful and extremely inconsistent motion controls. Most of the bosses in this game are fairly easy to beat. The dungeons aren't super difficult either, you certainly won't be finding any water temple levels of difficulty here, that's for sure. I'd say that Skyward Sword is one of the easiest Zelda games out there, if regular controls would've been implemented instead of motion controls only. I'm giving the difficulty a 4.

Overall Score: 6.5/10 The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has become known as the most divisive game in the series, and it's easy to see why. With great visuals, a fantastic soundtrack, as well as a great story and memorable soundtrack; I can see why some people love this game. On the other hand, the controls are unreliable and buggy to say the least. Nintendo only has themselves to blame for that though since they decided to make literally the entire game be played using only motion controls. That combined with some repetitive boss fights keep me from ever playing this title again until hopefully an HD remake comes out that doesn't rely on motion controls. It's a shame really, it wouldn't be such a divisive game for fans if it hadn't been for the awful controls. Heck, it would've been one of my favorite games in the series. Instead, it's one of my least favorites. Overall, I'm giving Skyward Sword a 6.5 out of 10.

Yeah, I never really found this game fun when I played it. Sure the story kept me going, but the controls were awful (Especially being in a small room where motion controls were not the best. I'd definitely take a Twilight Princess or Majora's Mask over Skyward Sword.